You can’t make this stuff up. Really:

Possible Nazi Theme of Grand Prix Boss’s Orgy Draws Calls to Quit

Few scandals in recent years have provoked as much anger and dismay across Europe as the saga of Max Mosley, the overseer of grand prix motor racing who made tabloid news last weekend in a front-page exposé and accompanying Web video showing him in a sadomasochistic orgy with five supposed prostitutes in a London sex “dungeon.”

But beyond the licentiousness of the episode, it was the suggestion of Nazi undertones in the role-playing during the session in a basement in London’s fashionable Chelsea district that led to demands for Mr. Mosley’s resignation as president of the Paris-based Federation Internationale de l’Automobile.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, they say, and they would be right [e.a.]: 

Family history has added to the notoriety: Mr. Mosley, 67, is the younger son of Britain’s 1930s fascist leader, Sir Oswald Mosley, and the society beauty Diana Mitford, whose secret wedding in Berlin in October 1936 was held at the home of the Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels and included Hitler as a guest of honor.

 Naturally, automakers are distancing themselves from this nasty episode and this nasty man. But he isn’t having any of it [e.a.]:

Mr. Mosley, undaunted, tried to turn the tables on BMW and Daimler Benz, which manufactures Mercedes-Benz cars, with a statement that raised the specter of the two companies’ own role during the Nazi era. … His statement held to his insistence that fault lay with the way in which his actions had been reported by The News of The World, and not with the actions themselves.

And the NYT’s John F. Burns ends with the kicker:

If he recognized the irony in the son of the man who led Britain’s “blackshirts” in reproving German companies for their wartime past, Mr. Mosley did not show it.

Perhaps those commentators were right after all when they said that 9/11 signaled the end of irony.

Or perhaps 9/11 will prove to be the beginning of an era when people will once again understand irony, and satire, the weapon of resistance par excellence. One can always hope.

One day perhaps the captains of the various media industries (old and new) will understand their vast power to shape public opinion among the ignorant, distraction-loving, and narrative-seeking masses [e.a.].

LONDON (AFP) - Britons are losing their grip on reality, according to a poll out Monday which showed that nearly a quarter think Winston Churchill was a myth while the majority reckon Sherlock Holmes was real

The survey found that 47 percent thought the 12th century English king Richard the Lionheart was a myth.

And 23 percent thought World War II prime minister Churchill was made up. The same percentage thought Crimean War nurse Florence Nightingale did not actually exist.

Three percent thought Charles Dickens, one of Britain’s most famous writers, is a work of fiction himself.

It’s always been like that, you say. What does it matter? you ask.

It matters because this ignorance can be easily leveraged through the myriad new forms of political propaganda that the Age of Technology has ushered in and unleashed.

It matters because unless we educate people (in an engaging way, not only in a boring PBS or NPR way) in their common humanity rather than pander to their tribal instincts, we are moving backward, not forward.

It means a new era of wars, not “post-partisan politics.”

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*** Do I really have to remind you that infotainment rules?

The NYT’s David Carr delivers grim news to “creatives”:

I’ve got some bad news for striking Hollywood writers: Election 2008 is a breakaway hit.

January was supposed to be the month when the writers’ strike took its toll, subjecting viewers to a menu of desiccated repeats and cheesy reality shows. Instead, the primary season is serving as the backdrop for one of the most compelling runs of event television in years, creating the kind of chatter network marketers would kill for and spectacular ratings for cable news.

Carr repeatedly tries to suggest that it’s the absence of appealing alternatives (like sports, late-night comedy, and scripted shows, for example) that accounts for the huge gains in audience numbers for “cable news” since 2004.

The Times’s Bill Keller disagrees:

“I think the level of interest in the presidential race would be intense even if writers were still churning out episodes of ‘24’ and ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ ” he wrote. “It’s a defining race for both parties, with a cast of fascinating candidates, some of whom fall into the breakthrough category. There also seems to be a visceral national yearning to turn the page.”

Perhaps. But I’m more inclined to accept the explanation of Brian Grazer, who is not a gazillionaire producer for nothing [e.a.]:

“There is a new episode on almost every night,” said Brian Grazer, a Hollywood producer who is in what is left of the Oscar hunt with “American Gangster.” “It is very human to be constantly searching for new stories, and now that the traditional outlets of those stories are shutting down, people are finding their drama in these unfolding events.”

So, yes, I agree with Grazer and with Keller. But neither one of them will come out and say the bleeding obvious: that it is the manner of coverage of politics that is drawing in the audiences. The “drama” is being manufactured by the cable “news” networks. (In this case, it is helped along by the wide-open nature of the political race, but that only makes it easier for the networks to churn out stories with unpredictable endings.)

It is not news. It is infotainment—in other words, information (none of which is necessarily true) packaged as entertainment.  

Now do you believe me when I say that Infotainment Rules? Here’s what I wrote:

Television, however, delivers what sells, and what sells is entertainment—or stuff that is packaged like entertainment. Infotainment doesn’t have to be bad or stupid or crass. High-quality infotainment may in fact be superior to dry “news” as a vehicle for delivering information to audiences.

Once again: I do not endorse the hideous devolution of TV “news” into infotainment. I am merely trying to get people to understand that what they’re getting on TV is not “news.” It’s entertainment, and the goal of its producers is to get you to watch their channel.

They do it by hooking you on stories. If the stories are exciting and the ending isn’t known to anyone in advance (as in an election, or a sensational kidnapping, or some violent flare-up somewhere, for example), people tune in. That’s why cable “news” is addicted to horse-race coverage of the U.S. election that is ten months away and can barely turn away to give any attention to the visit of our president to the Middle East.

If you want to know the news, take advantage of the vast amount of information available on the Internet and read widely.

If you want fictional rather than reality-based (and reality-bending) entertainment on TV and you want our political process to be a little more serious and less unseemly … I don’t know how to advise you. All I do is call ‘em how I see ‘em.

If you were feeling guilty about following the juicy story of the Los Angeles mayor’s “journalist” girlfriend who reported that the mayor was having an affair but failed to mention that she was his paramour, you can stop feeling guilty. Now.

In a post titled “More Hot Mayoral Sex,” Mickey Kaus explains why political gossip is good for America (emphases in the original):

The lid is off: L.A.’s mayor faces some N.Y. tabloid-style questioning at a news conference. The L.A. Times reporter who didn’t get the story doesn’t know quite what to make of this new state of affairs–I detect a mild sneering tone! Luke Ford sees a “beautiful synchronicity.” … I think Angelenos may be actually getting interested in local politics for once, which will give us better government in the long run. Special interests (e.g., unions, developers) have less power when people are actually paying attention. [What will happen if all the pols in power are no longer womanizers, etc.?--ed Not a serious possibility.] …

The powerful have less power when people are paying attention. And people pay attention when their interest is piqued. One of the things that piques people’s interest is gossipy, tabloid-style “journalism.” Even that is better than their paying no attention at all … which is the alternative.

Long live the people’s interest, and may we find many infotaining ways to pique it!

The ten-year anniversary of Diana’s death is coming up, so I guess it’s time for the British media to tear down her rival:

A documentary depicting the Duchess of Cornwall as a ‘woman of easy virtue’ whose lost virginity prevented her marrying Prince Charles in her youth is to be shown by Channel 4.

The salacious discussion of Camilla’s unsuitability to marry the heir to the throne will be shown tomorrow night.

Channel 4 has already faced a public outcry over plans to broadcast a photograph of Princess Diana dying in her mangled car as part of another documentary next week.

Insensitive revelations about the woman Prince Charles finally married in Windsor two years ago will doubtless be viewed with distaste by members of the Royal Family.

Doubtless.

Older readers will of course remember that Prince Charles not so long ago told Camilla that he wanted to “live inside her trousers,” perhaps as a tampon.